A 20 Somethings Take on Women’s Health

Where I am Going from Here!

Childbirth. We are all here because of it. Mothers describe it as the most painful and amazing days of their lives. Yes, that is correct, I said days. My mother was in labor for two whole days. I feel like childbirth is not something that our society talks about regularly. We have made it become such a clinical thing. We almost treat pregnancy as something that needs to be treated, all of the doctors, medications, and hand sanitizer to make this process as efficient and painless as possible. You have 36 hours to have this “magical” experience. The welcoming white walls and cold air greet you at the door.

This article will cover the comparisons and differences a birth in a hospital with an OBGYN verses a birth at a women’s center with a midwife. This will not tell women that they are bad people for making a choice of how to have their children, but rather show the positives and negatives of both types of births. I will admit that I have a slight bias because I am very pro natural birth, but I do understand the purpose of the more clinical side of childbirth. My hope is to interview several different mothers and be able to convey their stories of childbirth, especially touching on the reasons why they chose to have the births that they did. I will then relate this to scholarly articles on the social shift from natural births to the desire for c-sections and epidurals.

My goals and life have been all over the place in the last four years at school, but I have always come back to midwifery. I have a passion for women’s health and how to improve it and educate society. I plan to one day become a doula or possibly a midwife. This article will help me define what route I will want to take after graduation. Will I enter a masters program right away or will I start an apprenticeship process to become a doula?

Missions

Date Started

Date Completed

Initials

Outline of Article

3/10

Resources Chosen

3/28

Draft One

4/3

Writing Center Visit #1

4/5

Revisions

4/10-4/20

Final Draft Published

4/25

Feminism, man.

Feminism, it’s a wavy subject. Literally. The waves of feminism have currently been hitting the world like a tsunami. It was once thought the the third wave of feminism was over, that women had become equal to men, that they had the same rights as men. As we know from the past events, including the Women’s March in January and the upcoming Day Without a Woman next week.

For this applied project I will take to the community, my community of strong amazing women and men. Feminism has such a negative connotation attached to it. There are flashbacks to bra burning, dyed armpit hair and god forbid women in the workforce. Society has evolved so much, but still has such a long way to go.

March is Women’s History Month according to the Google, and America. What I plan to do is a tweet a day with a photo and 140 character interview with women and even some men. I want to hone in on celebrating regular, everyday people. These interviews will then be compiled into a blog series view book. I want to bring awareness and break down the stigma of what constitutes a feminist. It is not gender, biological sex, sexual orientation or political officiation.

My eport will include all of the tweets in real time as well as an articulated and complete composition of the interviews with some extended interviews. I would like it to be a series of feminist women and men and why they believe in equal rights among the sexes. There will be photos, hotlinks, and videos of the interviewed persons and hopefully myself sitting down and meeting with them.

Since this is such a relevant and time oriented project I need to begin right away, as in tomorrow! Each week will feature one person who’s story really stood out to me. I will do a full blog post about that person as well as the 140 character tweet interview.

What I hope others gain from this is that feminism is not a bad word. So ask yourself this, are you a feminist?

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5 thoughts on “Where I am Going from Here!”

I love the RA topic. I have always thought that when I retire, I might like to train as a doula, so this will be something I really look forward to reading! Interviewing women sounds great, and it may also be cool to add a doc, midwife, and doula to your list of interviewees!

Love the AP and didn’t even realize that that was what I was seeing on Twitter! Storify could be a little app that helps you (it allows you to drag and drop any tweets you choose into a little story, that then has its own link). Let me know if you want help, since I am not totally clear on the tech and the deliverable on this project, though I have total faith in you and I am sure it will turn out awesome!

Very interesting research article, I love it. I support both natural and epidural births personally I see myself going the epidural route because I’m a huge baby when it comes to pain! But I have seen a couple videos and learned about water birthing, which is super cool and natural! Interviewing mothers is an awesome idea; it will give your paper a lot more emotion and feeling for readers to really engage. I just had to look up what a doula is I’m surprised I’ve never heard that term! I love how passionate you are for all of us women, you go girl. Good luck!

Both of your projects sound great! I don’t know anything about child birth, so I am definitely looking forward to hearing your research! In addition, I love your project idea! I have loved seeing lots of different people being about to share their opinions on your feed! As a fellow feminist/equalist, let me know if you are looking for anyone else to interview! You already know I’m on twitter!!!

Ayla, I LOVE both of your ideas for your projects as they are so empowering. Your research article idea is so interesting as many people do not know there is different options for birth and different options for midwives, nurses, doulas, etc. I definitely think birth is a special, “once in a life-time” moment each time it happens but I personally think it should happen in hospitals or somewhere where immediate life saving care can be given if necessary as newborns are so fragile. That being said, I believe hospital birthing centers should be extremely homey and comforting. I’m interested in what you find in your research!

I love reading your tweets everyday for your applied project, they are so empowering! You make, me, and other girls feel proud to be a woman.

I think this is a very cool approach to how we see, discuss and view child birth. This will expose all different possibilities on child birth and allow people to see the different choices and the pros and cons of each. We usually see child birth in minimal ways but showing the audience and going into depth about each woman’s personal decisions behind this gives limitless possibilities and can create a more comfortable and better experience. I think personally it is a great idea but its ultimately the mothers decision and your project will help open eyes to different perspectives and approaches to delivering children